The trip back on the train was the only interesting bit. First
there was the middle aged woman two seats in front of me who suddenly took out
a bag of sweets and offered it to an apparent stranger – a man – on the other
side of the aisle. They hadn’t exchanged a word before that and he looked quite
perplexed, poor chap. But he dutifully took a toffee, unwrapped it and did his
level best to smile amicably while the woman engaged him in apparently earnest
conversation. She also stared at him intensely the whole time and nodded
eagerly at everything he said. She looked like one of those toy dogs people put
in the back windows of their cars to compliment the fluffy dice at the front. That
would have frightened the bloody life out of me, but he looked oddly gratified
by the attention.
Then there was the person sitting across the aisle from me.
It had a short, boy’s hairstyle and was wearing a boy’s cap and a boy’s wrist
watch, but when it turned in my direction I had no doubt that the eyes were
those of a teenage girl. It also had girl’s hands and was wearing a girl’s
necklace. And it was very thin, apart from the legs below the knee which were
visible because its jeans were cut off at that point and the legs looked a size
too big for the rest of its body. I desperately wanted to say ‘Excuse me, but
would you mind revealing your gender because I’m most intrigued.’ But you
can’t, can you? It might have caused embarrassment or even distress, and I
would never want to do that. And I do realise that I’m probably straying way
beyond the bounds of political correctness in saying this, but that’s how it
was.
The young woman sitting next to her was quite different; she
was definitely a young woman. The odd thing about her was that when we rose to
alight at Uttoxeter she kept shooting familiar, smiling looks at me, as though
she knew me and was waiting for me to say hello. I hadn’t a clue who she was,
so I could only do the proper thing and frown more forcefully in return.
It was the smile that bemused me, you see. Another woman
smiled at me in Derby
today, and yet another in Ashbourne yesterday, and I really can’t fathom why
they do it. I know I’ve mentioned this phenomenon before, but let me tell you
something: The frown lines above the bridge of my nose are so deep they can be
seen from outer space. And when I die I fully expect that my head will be
shipped to some anthropology department somewhere in New England so they can be
studied in an attempt to answer the riddle: who made these lines, what tools
did they use, how long did it take, and do they have religious significance or
are they evidence of alien contact some time before the Romans invented
history? In short, I wear a permanent frown which should dispel any pea-brained
notion that I am anything other than miserable, angry, distant and generally
anathema to the majority of the human species.
And so I’m tempted to wonder whether there exists a breed of
deviant women who find themselves irresistibly drawn to men with faces only
good for curdling milk. I can imagine such a breed flourishing in Australia because Australian blokes are a pretty
unprepossessing bunch, but here in Britain? Surely not. We’re
civilised. (Just a bit of friendly reverse sledging there, mates, nothing more.)
Ah, and I forgot another odd little encounter which preceded
the aforementioned ones on the train. I was walking through the shopping mall
and in front of me were two women, one of whom was pushing a baby’s buggy. The
two of them stopped, and as I caught up with them I could see that strapped in
the buggy was a cuddly toy monkey. The older of the women unstrapped it and
handed it to the younger one who cradled it to her neck and then they walked
happily on. Now, I realise there might be a sad story behind this so maybe it
isn’t a matter to be taken lightly. Nevertheless, I was tempted to wonder why
people explore the four corners of the globe in search of fascination when all
they have to do is walk through a shopping mall on a Thursday afternoon.
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